The Witch on the Stake
by Wicca-Ember
Summary: Bones and Booth start on a new case. They discover a girl who has been burned at the stake. It is my 'ideal Bones'. So there is Zack and Daisy etc... Relationships include, Hodgins/Angela Angela/Roxie Bones/Booth Sweets/Daisy.


**Witch Bones**

The phone was ringing. Temperance Brennan sat up, thwacking her head on the head of her bed. She crawled rather ungracefully off the end of her wide bed. Her head was still pounding, and the phone was still ringing. A wonderful morning already she thought grouchily. With a groan, she hauled myself to her feet, rubbing her aching lower back. She stumbled through her apartment into the kitchen, snatching the phone off the bench.

"Temperance?" the voice on the other line asked. It was Seeley Booth.

"What?" Temperance was instantly awake. Seeley Booth always called her the second he got wind of a case – so it was obviously important. They had been working in Tandem as partners for years.

"We've got a corpse. Pretty much charcoal, burned beyond recognition."

"Where?" The Forensic Anthropologist was already throwing toast into the toaster.

"In the woods." Booth was the FBI agent she worked with. The best homicide agent in the US, it was strange for him to sound so stressed.

"I'll be there in half an hour." Brennan dashed into the bathroom, pulling at her cupboard door. Blasted thing was jammed as usual. She gave in and started stripping off for a quick shower. She paused in front of the mirror before stepping into the shower stall. For thirty-something she still looked pretty damn awesome. She cocked her head to the side. Anthropologically speaking it was a piece of body language used to attract the sympathy and adoration of others. Basically, this translated to cute. Personally, Tempe didn't see it.

After a quick shower, she dressed swiftly, leaving the bathroom just in time to catch her toast as it burst from the toaster. She jumped into her car and drove to the Jeffersonian lab in the town centre. The Jeffersonian was a big building, tall and ominous in an impressive sort of way. She made her way up a few levels to the Medico-Legal Lab. Once inside her office, She grabbed a handful of papers and suited up, putting on a plain blue protective jumpsuit. She grabbed a box of latex gloves and a couple of silver tools for scraping dirt and bone samples.

She arrived in the woods, just of main street with a few minutes to spare.

"Bones! Oh thank God you're here." Booth grabbed his partner by the arm, leading her over to a little walkway. Temperance happily noted his usual technicolour socks, laughing to herself. He was also wearing a bright orange tie and his "Cocky" belt-buckle. They walked the track in silence. In the air, Temperance could smell the odd charcoal scent Booth had described on the phone, but it was mixed with the foul odour of cooking flesh which, she dually noted, he had neglected to mention. Booth pulled Tempe off a little track to the side, this path was narrower and the pair had to travel single file. Every now and then, there was a little dusting of ash along the ground. Temperance paused every few meters to examine these ashy streaks, often scraping little samples into plastic vials.

"So, our victim was burned before it was dumped, I suppose." Booth picked up a clump of ash, holding it out to Bones.

"Yes, and by the looks of the bone fragment in the ash …" She picked up another larger clump and dusted it down to reveal half of the C5 vertebrae. "Our victim was ignited pre-mortem."

"English, please?" Booth asked grumpily.

"Technically, I am speaking English." Booth rolled his eyes. "Our victim," Brennan said quietly, "was burned alive."

Booth and Brennan walked on, he pulled her up and pointed to a clump of grass. She knelt, pushing aside the fronds, to reveal a small, blackened skeleton. It was straightened, but broken in many places, as though someone had handled it rather roughly.

"Who found the victim?" She asked, methodically snapping on a pair of gloves.

"A pair of hikers. They were looking for kindling for a fire – and found some that was pre-burned."

Brennan took a deep breath, then reached down and ran her finger along the Mandible. The victim was young, no older than twenty-seven or so.

"So, age? Gender?" Booth crouched down nearby

Brennan picked up the skull, turning it over in her palm, She looked at the nasal bridge, examining it carefully. It was broad and flat. The cheek bones were low and flat and the whole structure of the face was broad. Negroid, maybe? She voiced her assumptions to Booth, though making sure she wasn't being to definitive. After all, she hated giving answers until she was absolutely sure.

"Up to you, Bones. I can't tell a jawbone from thigh bone."

"Mandible's curved – it weighs about two pound. On the other hand, the femur's long, thick and heavy." She said, once again speaking on auto-pilot. Booth chuckled, examining near-by bushes and bagging some charred … stuff …. That he'd found. Temperance picked up the pelvis. It was broad and crumbling slightly due to the burning. But the breadth indicated post-pubescent age – and obviously female.

"Female." Brennan said quietly.

"Can you give us an approximate age?" Booth asked his partner, scrawling on his note pad. Brennan nodded and picked up the clavicle, looking for the ridge-marks defining age. The calcium deposits were strong and frequent leaving white ridges across the bone. The entire skeleton was completely non-arthritic but the ischium, pubis and illium were fused and there were no epiphyseal lines. Without a doubt post-pubescent, Temperance thought proudly.

"Twenty to twenty-five years of age."

Booth nodded, scribbling this on a little pad of Post-it Notes.

A man came up behind Seeley. "Agent Booth?" The man's voice was deep and gruff, muffled by his extensive beard.

"Yes?"

"I'm Tom Aitkens. I own this patch of land. I'm sorry I couldn't be here earlier – the wife's having a bit of a break-down."

"Quite alright sir." Booth shook his hand. Tempe stood slowly, hurriedly wiping the decomposed composition of soil and leaf-litter from her hands – the average person would call this dirt.

"I'm Doctor Temperance Brennan. I'm a forensic Anthropologist."

Aitkens nodded, then shook her hand. "I like a smart lady, aye." He had a strong Texan accent – not unusual there in Vermont, of course.

"I'd like all of these bones shipped back to the Jeffersonian," Brennan added, giving Booth a nod.

"Hey Angie!" Jack Hodgins wrapped his arms around his very pregnant wife.

"Not the time, not the place, Dr Hodgins." Tempe said. "Just because you're highly intelligent and brilliant at your job … actually that means a lot, never mind." She craned back over the charred remains.

"Look at this little beauty!" Hodgin's head rose from the skeleton, awe struck. He was holding up a tiny charred insect, looking overly excited.

"What is it?" Cammille Saroyan peered at what really did appear to be a lump of charcoal.

"It's _Dione moneta _of the subfamily _Heliconiinae _belonging to the family _Nymphalidae_."

"Sure." Cam said. "But what is it?" Cam was the forensic pathologist, specializing in flesh and DNA profiling – and the head of the medico-legal lab.

"This," Hodgins said, already turning toward his work station with the bug in a set of forceps. "Is a butterfly."

"If we knew what significance that had that probably would have been a far more impressive statement." Angela said bluntly. The team all just nodded.

Jack Hodgins was the resident entomologist, mineralogist and particulate expert. Angela, his wife was a forensic artist. She did facial reconstruction and could get a message off a piece of paper completely wiped clean of its text.

"Well," Jack continued, pacing excitedly in front of the computer already humming to life on his desk. "These butterflies are found throughout Brazil and Central America mostly, but will stray to New Mexico and Texas if the weather's hot."

Everyone continued to stare at him.

"Which is now."

"So basically," Dr. Brennan said, peering through his microscope at the charred insect, "You're saying that the body or murderer has been in or near Brazil, Central America, New Mexico or Texas."

"Thanks for narrowing it down." Booth grumbled. "Angela, will you check missing person's reports from those areas.

"Remember," Temperance said, "We're looking for someone Negroid, so Brazil seems pretty unlikely."

Angela nodded, turning back to her office.

Booth and Bones walked in amicable silence to Sweets' office. Theye pushed open the door…then shut it again. Sweets had been lain back on the couch, his shirt open and shoes gone, his girlfriend Daisy had been reared above him, her chocolate hair falling to cover her mouth which was, well. You know. As the door slammed shut there was a little squeal from Daisy and a crash as she apparently toppled off the couch. After an indignant yell from the psychologist and a few giggles there came the sound of zipping up flies and then Temperance's intern opened the door. Her cheeks were red and her hair was hastily scraped back into a ponytail. She straightened her jacket.

"Lab?" She said, not making eye contact with her boss.

"Yes." Temperence said. "Go."

Booth had his hand over his mouth and was stifling his laughter – or vomit. Temperance wasn't quite sure which. Sweets cleared his throat.

"You can, uh, come in." His cheeks were redder than Daisy's had been, and, Brennan noticed, his hair was ruffled at the back. As Booth sat down he smoothed Sweets' hair.

"Thanks dude." The young doctor said, sitting down. "So, let's get started."

Temperance and Seeley just stared at Lance Sweets, who at this point was about ready to shoot himself. The duo looked slightly smug and very amused.

"J-Just go!" Sweets rubbed his face, sinking back into his chair, his eyes closed. "Go."

All the invitation they needed, Booth and Brennan stood in tandem and left the room, bursting into raucous laughter the instant the door shut. Sweets groaned and collapsed back into his chair.


End file.
